Solutions May Surface in the Still of the Night

“Necessity is the mother of invention!” The first time I heard this was nearly twenty years ago when I was introduced to Tony Robbins’ material. I have to admit, the first time I heard this it didn’t quite register.

However, nearly two decades later, it makes all the sense in the world. In fact, a majority of the things we take for granted were created out of a need. When the need became great enough, someone figured out a solution.

Such is the case with a new eBook that just hit the market - Tokens for TV. The idea for this informative book is the brainchild of working mom, Lisa Workman. As she explains it, about a year ago, she and her husband were struggling with how to get their kids to take an interest in choosing how much television and computer time they were spending each day. She came up with a system that not only limited how much TV/Computer time they received, but also took out some of the parental nagging and placed some responsibility on their shoulders. She came up with a simple solution to helping children manage their television and computer time.

Seeing how effective her system is, friends began asking her how it worked. After numerous requests, she wrote down the system and eventually fine tuned it to the point it became her now popular eBook, Tokens for TV.

An exciting aspect of this resource is that the information aligns perfectly with Lisa’s personal and professional vision and mission. She is extremely committed to providing quality information to families while promoting healthy lifestyles for children. However, something Lisa realizes is that without an effective marketing campaign to promote Tokens for TV there are many people who will never know how effective the system can be.

Lisa has put together a very effective campaign which includes full use of her Tokens for TV website, free reports, and article distribution both online and off, interviews with the media and viral marketing. Her marketing plan was developed long before the eBook was taken to market. Without a doubt, she will be successful in getting the word out.

Another excellent example of creative problem solving comes from Jo Capista, DDS, a Pennsylvania based dentist specializing in general and cosmetic dentistry. One of his greatest challenges was positioning his message about his top-notch cosmetic dentistry services to his market. As he analyzed his market and those who would invest in cosmetic dentistry, he knew he had to use unconventional marketing strategies to reach potential patients.

He began offering complimentary public information seminars. He promoted the seminars in neighborhood newspapers and with posters strategically placed throughout his region. The response to his first session was overwhelming. So much in fact he repeated the process several times with incredible results both in name recognition and revenues.

The next step was to do the seminars with other businesses who shared a similar market. Again, the process proved extremely successful. He then decided to invest in a vendor space at a body and bath expo. As with the other strategies, the expo was equally as successful.

I had the opportunity to talk in detail with Dr. Capista about why he feels all of this is working. Simply put, preparation, delivery and follow up. And of course, making sure he is targeting the right market for his services.

Like Lisa Workman and Dr. Capista, countless people have excellent ideas that solve a common problem; solutions that will definitely work. Unlike Lisa and Dr. Capista, they either don’t test their idea or if they do, they get busy with day-to-day activities and lose their focus, thus losing their potential for seeing how successful their idea could have been.

Often, it is in the still of the night, the answers will surface. A simple strategy that will help you to identify a solution you may be able to provide to others is to ask yourself the following question, “What keeps you or your customers awake at night?”

Regardless of the size of a company, it is essential to constantly seek solutions to your customer’s problems. Once you find a solution, take action and commit the time, money and resources to the end result. When your customer is looking for a solution, who do you want them to go to – your or your competition?

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Getting the most out of your Web presence

In my seminars I have often said, “If you build it, they will not come” when referring to Web sites.  Getting more from your Web presence isn’t so hard or even all that technical. But it does mean that you need to get involved.  If you built a Web site and aren’t getting the results you’d like, try these three recommendations and see if you can influence some significant improvements.

Use your Web site to provide information to your customers.  This means a couple of strategic principals:

a) information needs to be segmented for different customer groups.  If your product or service appeals to or deals with different types of customers, then you should make sure that your Web site does also.  And what about suppliers?  Anyone who does business with your organization should be addressed on your site and should be able to access information pertinent to them quickly and easily.

b) information should be kept current.  This doesn’t mean that everything on your site needs to change, but again – relative to your segmented groups—you should provide reasons for people to come back.  Enhance your customer support with tips and product updates; expand your marketing with press releases and case studies.

Give your visitors ways to interact with you on the Web.  This starts by providing interactive functionality on your Web pages that encourage visitors to:

• Print a page or document of information

• Fill out a survey or request

• Signup with their email address in order to receive your newsletter;

• Email-a-page to a friend [also called viral marketing];

• View an online presentation;

• Contact you by live chat, email, guest form;

• Buy something from your online store or download a coupon.

Get proactive about sending people to your Web site.  People are generally confused on how to make this work.  There is a lot of noise about site optimization.  You really need to think about your business or non-profit and understand what you are trying to accomplish here.  Yes, you should do some basic things to make it easy for people to find you in a search engine.  However, if you have a local small business and you’re focused on keyword optimization in an already crowded field -- better you should employ ways to get connected with your customers, not some anonymous unknown out there.

Use online and offline ways to gather email addresses.  Online - use the interactive functions mentioned in #2 above.  Offline – you need to find ways to collect addresses.  Customers come into your store. Have people fill out surveys, enter names in a drawing, and gather email addresses at seminars and trade shows.  As you gather the addresses, create regular brief email messages of interest to this highly targeted audience sending them back to your Web site for coupons, updates, tips. 

Put your Web address on all your materials.  This includes putting it on your business cards, signage, letterhead, your signature line in your emails – everything.  If you have successfully loaded your Web site with information for your segmented groups and have provided places for people to interact with you, then USE IT!  Promote it widely and let it become a lively marketing vehicle for you, and a place to help save you time and money.  You can be open for business 24/7 on weekends and holidays…another good reason to consider online stores and coupons.

A few months ago, I found a company that built software around these same principles.  It was designed by marketing people who wanted to provide tools for small-to-midsize businesses and non-profits to be able to get control of their Web sites and turn them into marketing machines. The company is called CentralPoint Systems and they can help you add some of these functions to your current Web site or start from scratch and get your Web presence dialed up and getting results.  Contact Matt Wigdahl at matt@centralpointsystems.com or 801-277-1013 for more information.

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